The Nobel Prizes are probably the world's most famous awards that don't go to entertainers, but there are a number of prizes that are very significant in more specialized areas of study, such as the Fields Prizes in math. In terms of prizes that go to biologists, the Lasker Awards are probably the biggest, and in many ways fill a need left by the fact that the Nobel Prizes don't even have a biology category (biologists are shoehorned into chemistry or medicine, as needed). The Laskers "have celebrated scientists, physicians, and public servants whose accomplishments have made major advances in the understanding, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and even cure of many of the great crippling and killing diseases of our century." They interpret this mandate fairly broadly, and have awarded many discoveries in basic biology, including some that did not have a clear medical relevance at the time.
This year's awards fit this pattern nicely, as they reward what was originally thought to be a bit of a biochemical curiosity: how the ends of chromosomes are maintained. The three researchers who received the award played central roles in defining these structures, termed telomeres, and eventually identified the complex of proteins and RNA that maintain them. Liz Blackburn performed these experiments in Tetrahymena, in part with her grad student and fellow award winner, Carol Greider. Parallel experiments, some in collaboration with Blackburn, showed that a very similar system operated in yeast were done by Jack Szostak, who also took home a prize. These results made it clear that telomerase activity was likely to be a universal feature of eukaryotes. As it turns out, the intervening years have shown that the function of telomerase does have some significant medical relevance, as its expression can help a cell maintain its chromosomes through repeated cell divisions. Telomerase activity has been implicated in the growth of a number of cancers, and controlling it may be essential for future developments in stem cell-based therapies.
On the clinical side of things, the Laskers awarded Aaron Beck, who played an essential role in founding the field of cognitive therapy, over resistance from the field of traditional Freudian therapy. The Lasker citation for Dr. Beck points out that his battle to win a place for this new field helped bring more rigorous evaluation standards to psychotherapy in general. In addition, they handed a special achievement award to Joseph Gall for his pioneering work, including the development of the in situ hybridization technique, which helps spot messenger RNAs in cells and genes on chromosomes. But they also cite his role in promoting the entry of women into the field of biology, largely by simply treating them as equals in his lab. Among his students? Fellow winner Liz Blackburn.